


Haunted

by irregardlxss



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Batfamily Feels, DaddyBats, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missions Gone Wrong, Sad!Dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-17 23:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2327555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irregardlxss/pseuds/irregardlxss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a failed mission, the whole team is upset. But it's Robin, upon returning to Wayne Manor, who it hits the hardest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fall

Time slows.   
The whole team is used to the feeling - when fighting, adrenaline is at an all-time high. Usually, the feeling's just intense. Kind of cool, if they're going to be completely honest.   
Today, it's laden with dread.   
Today, time has the courtesy to slow just as the Joker's card soars towards the rope of the trapeze.   
Today, instead of watching an epic move connect, they get to watch the projectile, gleaming wickedly, slice through the air. There's a dramatic, movie-worthy glint as the sharpened edge of the card catches the stage lighting. Six pairs of eyes hone in on the flying object, six bodies swinging to face it. Sound mutes out. Meg'ann throws her arms up. Six mouths hang open, watching in blank horror.   
The card slices the rope neatly in two.

They call an ambulance, but Wally can tell that they all know it's futile. There's no point. They're dead.  
Kaldur talks to the police, the red flashing lights hitting his face and making him look like some sort of demon.  Joker and his henchmen are taken into custody. The team either averts their eyes or watches in sick fascination as paramedics load two limp bodies into the ambulance.   
  Wally's in shock. He knows it, but he can't seem to make himself move. He just stands there, jaw lolling down. His mouth is an open invitation to any small animal that may choose to enter, but his brain seems to be refusing to buffer enough to respond to any new instructions.   
He can just stand there. More or less helplessly. He watches.   
For someone who has superhuman speed and all-too-often makes use of it, this is unheard of.   
He probably would have stood there, movement forgotten as his brain tried to wrangle sense into the fact that they failed, the team didn't achieve their objective, two innocent people plummeted to their deaths because they couldn't save them, but he's jerked into motion by someone tapping on his arm.   
With their fist.   
He catches sight of Artemis just before bowling her right over, and jerks to a halt. She's biting her lip, and looks understandably upset, but she's pointing across the tent. Trying to convey something.   
Upon further inspection, Wally realizes the point is aimed at Robin, who is visibly trembling. His face is a shade of pasty gray that Wally didn't realize human skin was capable of producing, and his lips are so tightly squeezed together that they're white, too. The kid looks completely lost and about two and a seventh seconds from either screaming or keeling over.   
Dang it.   
 _Robin._  
He's an awful friend. Truly, horrendously awful. What kind of person forgets that his best friend's parents died _falling from a sabotaged trapeze_ , considering that the forgetting takes place right after watching two people dying by _falling from a sabotaged trapeze_ and being powerless to stop it?  
The rest of the team seems to be gaining control of themselves, contributing to Aqualad's testimony, so he speeds over to Rob's side.   
"Hey," Wally mutters. "You ok?"  
Robin doesn't even notice him. That is worrying. Rob _always_ notices.   
Wally reaches out and grabs Dick's shoulder, shaking gently. His heart's twisting - Robin looks so _young_. Vulnerable. He's only seen his friend lose his composure once or twice, and it freaks him out that Dick doesn't have his usual cheerful control. He looks like a boy.  
Which is completely excusable - his friend is fourteen years old - but the kid is way tougher than _any_ other fourteen year old Wally has happened to encounter. Tougher than Wally himself, if he's being honest.   
Honesty is not something Wally excels at.   
Thankfully, the shoulder-shake pulls Robin back into the present. He sets his jaw determinedly (of course it's determinedly - when is the kid anything but determined) and heaves a breath, chest flaring in and out. He turns to face Wally.   
"You okay?" he asks again, now that Robin can hear him. Rob nods - Wally has a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't trust his voice. He does seem to be in control, though. His face is still pale, the mess of black hair not helping, but the shaking has mostly stopped.   
The team rendezvouses (Wally really doesn't care whether or not that's a word, besides, he has more important things to worry about - he's a wee bit occupied with the  _probable post-traumatic stress his best friend is undergoing_ ), and then takes the bioshop back to the cave. Not one of the six of them says a word.   
Robin seems to have somewhat successfully shoved his blank-out, and the accompanying emotion, to the depths of his brain. For the entirety of the excruciating trip, he sits contently in his seat, and he's his usual tough, cheerful self at the debrief. He volunteers information when it's important, stays quiet when it's not, and jokes around happily.   
 Wally can't believe it.  _Doesn't_ believe it. There's no way all the raw, ugly, emotion he saw his friend struggling to control is just gone. Yet, even to Wally, who knows him better than almost anyone, there are no holes in the veneer. Of course, nobody can see his eyes, but Robin seems to be completely ok.   
 Wally says goodbye to his friend, and Rob flips into the zeta tube, saluting flippantly before vanishing.   
 Wally turns. Batman's still there, and, while the man terrifies the  _crap_ out of him, he decides that it's probably a good idea to let him know about Rob's reaction, just in case. Discreetly, of course - Robin had a whole arsenal of creepy ninja moves, all of which he could quite easily use on even a kid with super-speed if said kid let the team know that he was more upset then he was letting on. Plus, Batman had a mild obsession with secret identities.   
 The man's perceptive, though - Wally will give him that. He only has to make the slightest of hand motions to draw him into a corner.   
 Robin's mentor, upon reaching the corner, stands there. Waiting. Wally stares blankly, more than a little alarmed at the Dark Knight's proximity, until finally Batman clears his throat and Wally realizes he had a reason for the awkward corner-meeting.   
"Umm...," he said. Eloquent. Batman just continues standing there, waiting for Wally to get his brain  _to the point_.   
"It's just, Robin, erm, basically we watched two trapeze artists fall because their rope was cut and die and none of us could stop it and his parents died pretty much the same way... but you knew that. Right. I just.. wanted to tell you that even  though he seems perfectly fine he did kind of space out for a bit after it happened and was shaking and stuff so it might be a good idea to keep an eye on him."  
 _And that, Wally, is how you fail English._  
Batman doesn't seem to care, though. He nods - the same curt head bob that Robin did earlier - and turns to head back towards the group.   
Partway there, though, he stops.   
"Thank you, Wally," the Dark Knight tells him.   
He zetas back to Gotham without another word. 


	2. The Landing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is formatted differently, and if you're anything like me that probably drives you up the wall, but bear with - it looks better this way! I'm going to toss a warning in there that this chapter involves off-screen parental death. And vomit. And sobbing. And grief. So gird yourselves.

  Dick throws himself out of bed and staggers into the bathroom, barely making it in time to empty his stomach of its contents. He can feel tears running down his cheeks, but he can't seem to make them stop, and he's a little occupied with things other than wiping them off. 

   _Mom._

_Dad._

  Dreams. Suck. Massively. He's never sleeping again. Living his life in a permanent fog of exhaustion has to be better than re-watching his parents die. Anything, really, would be better than that. Than falling asleep and watching his _mom,_ his _father,_ plummet to the ground and lie there broken. Unfixable. And do nothing about it. 

  Dick, finally finishing puking, leans his forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet seat. He's shaking, and his hair's stuck to his forehead with sweat. Tears are still rolling determinedly down his cheeks. Anguish is turning around in his head loudly enough that he's still dizzy, but the cold edge of the toilet feels good. The fact that it reeks of his own vomit seems irrelevant. 

 He feels absolutely fucking awful. He had a _bad dream,_ one little nightmare about something that happened _six years_ ago, and he's barfing and crying like some clueless, sheltered toddler. He's _so weak._  

  Disgusted with himself, he turns around and starts to climb onto his feet, eyes fixed on the tile floor of his bathroom. He's still shaky and dizzy, and reels around sickeningly when he finally makes it up. 

  A large hand closes on his shoulder, steadying him. 

   _Bruce_. 

  "I'm fine," he says, automatically, but the voice is hoarse and crackles and then suddenly he's full-on sobbing and all his weight is on Bruce and he has his face buried in the fluff of B's housecoat. His head is still spinning, but Bruce's presence, solid and reassuring under his fuzzy robe, anchors him. He's not drifting anymore. 

  He should stand up. 

  That would be the strong thing to do, the hero thing. Push off of Bruce's chest and thank him, and then walk into his room. Go to bed. 

  He should stand up, but he doesn't. 

  

  Bruce wraps his arms around Dick, holding the boy's body against his own. He had been listening with half an ear as he went about his business, mindful of Wally's warning. Dick, although he would most likely never tell them, couldn't have picked a better best friend. Flash's nephew was loud and impulsive, yes, but he had a huge heart and understood Dick like few people ever would. 

  Of course he listened for Dick. The nature of their mission alone told him he probably would need too. The fact that the acrobats had died made it so he would have bugged Dick's room if they hadn't fought about the invasion of privacy that very thing constituted less than a month ago. 

  The moment he heard yelling, he came running. 

  He chose his ward well. Dick, aside from the almost supernatural grace and fighting ability, was strong and selfless. He was rational, too. Even when presented with the man who killed his parents, at _nine years old_ , the boy had stayed away from mindless revenge. Dick _hated_ letting his emotion distract from any of his other goals.  Being just a kid, he was constantly pushing for maturity because he hated being treated like one. He was incredibly optimistic, a feat Bruce knew required much more strength than the constant emotionless blankness he himself employed.

  He was, however, a fourteen-year-old boy with an awful past who took the weight of the world on his shoulders. 

  So when Bruce found him, curled around the toilet, sweat-soaked body clad in nothing but pajama pants, he was justifiably concerned. Bruce knows first-hand what losing your parents does to you. It never really goes away.  The moment you think the wound is completely healed, something comes back and bites you, and it opens up again, rawer and sorer than ever. 

  Bruce cradles the back of Dick's dark head with one hand. The boy is sobbing in great, gasping heaves, something that he's seen him do only a handful of times. He's also trembling. The lean muscles on his acrobat's body are taut with horror. 

  Bruce rubs Dick's back in long, slow movements, holding the boy's head more tightly against his chest. He knows how much his ward relies on tactile contact, so he gives it to him. Bruce knows it weakens him, hates admitting it, but he loves Dick Grayson with all his heart. Seeing him like this tears him up inside. 

  They stay like that for ages. Dick keeps sobbing - ugly, racking, absolutely devastated sobs - and Bruce keeps holding his boy together and in the present. He doesn't say anything, partly because he has no idea what _to_ say. He knows, however, that the hug is incontrovertibly right. And he'll be damned if he's leaving a second before Dick's ready for him to. 

  Finally, slowly, Dick's broken gasps fade away. 

  The shuddering calms, and the muscles ease. Bruce doesn't move as Dick slowly cries himself out, and then starts working to master himself. He's proud to watch as the boy gains control, using long, steady breaths, exactly the way Bruce taught him. 

  When he's sure Dick is ready, Bruce slowly lets go. He keeps a hand on the boy's shoulder, just in case, but he seems to be ok. 

  The shocking blue eyes, cloaked in red and still slowly producing tears, lift up to meet his own. Dick smiles. It's admittedly small and watery, but it's definitely a smile, and only Dick Grayson could produce a smile minutes after making the noises he just was. 

  "Thank you," Dick rasps out. Bruce's hand tightens on his shoulder, and even he couldn't say if it was for Dick or himself. 

  Finally, he finds his voice. 

  "Always, Dick. Always."

  It's Dick who hugs him, this time. 

  "Now, shall we go see if Alfred has anything sweet for us?


End file.
